Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease. It's the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the U.S., with nearly 340,000 U.S. cases reported in 2005.

There may be twice as many gonorrhea cases in the U.S., since gonorrhea often goes undiagnosed and unreported, notes Douglas.

Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea

"Gonorrhea has proven to be quite efficient at navigating around the drugs we use to combat it, developing resistance first to penicillin, then tetracycline, and most recently to fluoroquinolones," Douglas says.

The CDC has recommended fluoroquinolones as a gonorrhea treatment option since 1993.

Douglas says the drugs were "highly effective" for several years, but fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea has increased in recent years -- first in Hawaii, then California, and then nationwide among men who have sex with men.

"As a result, CDC recommended in 2000 and 2002 that fluoroquinolones not be used to treat gonorrhea infections acquired in Hawaii and California, respectively," Douglas says. "In 2004, we recommended that these no longer be used to treat men who have sex with men nationwide."

Now, the CDC is extending that recommendation to all gonorrhea cases nationwide.

The CDC bases its decision on preliminary 2006 data showing that fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea is present nationwide and is continuing to rise among heterosexual men and among men who have sex with men.

The data come from gonorrhea cases reported among men in 26 U.S. cities.

In the first half of 2006, nearly 7% of gonorrhea cases in heterosexual men in those cities were resistant to fluoroquinolones. "That's an 11-fold increase from 0.6% in 2001," Douglas says.

In the first half of 2006, 38% of gonorrhea cases reported in those cities among men who have sex with men were fluoroquinolone-resistant, up from 1.6% in 2001.